Schoonover Farm Blog

So here is the list of the potential chicks I ordered: Black Australorps; Lt. Brahmas; Dark Cornish; Black and White Giants; Buff and White Orpingtons; New Hampshire, Rhode Island Reds, Barred, White, Partridge, Buff Rocks; Sussex, Turkens; White, Silver Laced, & Columbian Wyandottes, Red Star and Black Star.

So below are our chicks (the largest 4 are from our chickens and not from the necessarily from the above list).  I am trying to figure out what we have.  I believe we have Buff and Barred Rocks but not sure about the others.

I am wondering if the two brown chicks in the backgrounds could be Partridge Rocks.

I am pretty sure the one on the right is a Silver Laced Wyandotte.  But I am not sure that the other black and white chicks are in these next three photos.

I am wondering if the one standing on the front of the wood round is a Sussex.

I am really not sure what the chick just behind and right of the Barred Rock chick.

So you chick experts out there, what breeds of chickens do you think we have?

It has been challenging recently.  My heart and mind want to do farm chores, but my body screams no.  Thursday I was too ill to even try.  Friday and Saturday I made it to the barn and did about 1/2 my normal chores and then went in. It is nice to see the animals anyway.  I got to see the pigs eat out of the big pig trough for the first time.

But I also found the remains of one of our hens, likely killed by an eagle.

Today I slowly finished my portion of the chores.  I noticed that the peahen was running around, and below is where she had been nesting.  We had never checked to see if there were eggs under her because we didn’t want to disturb her, but there are no signs of any eggs.  This is worrisome because we had a chicken hen sitting on eggs under the goat feeder, and the other day the eggs were completely missing.  So we are worried we have an egg thief in our midst, perhaps another weasel.  But not sure if an egg thief could steal eggs from the hay loft or not.  We have a live trap out baited with an egg but no results yet.

After exhausting myself with what little chores I did, I sat on the back porch with some water and watch Tom rototill the garden.  I just love our soil!

Later in the morning I really want to get some seeds planted in the greenhouse, but out there it is hot and you have to stand.  So Tom helped me set up a a planting station on our back porch where I could sit and plant.  I managed to get the squashes, pumpkins, cucumbers, basil and sunflower seeds started this way.  Tom then moved them to the greenhouse.

So I got a little something done today and felt like I was outside for once.